Two-ply foam molded articles comprising a fabric such as a nonwoven fabric of polyester, nylon or the like and a foamed polyolefin layer such as a foamed polyproplylene layer provided on the back of said fabric are widely used in automobiles as materials for trunk room, pillar, door trim, floor mat, rear package tray and the like.
Such two-ply foam molded articles as referred to above have heretofore been prepared by integral lamination of a fabric such as a nonwoven fabric and a foamed sheet using an adhesive to obtain a foambacked fabric which is then subjected to draw molding while the foamed sheet is softened by heating. At the time when two-ply foam molded articles are prepared in the manner as mentioned above, however, the draw forming property of such foambacked fabric as mentioned above becomes poor if the heating temperature employed is low, and particularly it is difficult to form the two-ply foam molded article to shape as desired optionally by deep drawing the foambacked fabric having a thicker or thinner portion. On the other hand, if the heating temperature employed is excessively high, it is not possible to obtain two-ply foam molded articles of good quality as foam collapse would occur, though the draw forming of the foambacked fabric can be performed sufficiently. When two-ply foam molded articles of various shapes are prepared by using a foamed sheet and a fabric such as an nonwoven fabric in the manner mentioned above, it was necessary to minutely control the heating temperature to be employed, involving the difficulty in draw forming the foambacked fabric to shape.
Further, in preparing two-ply foam molded articles according to the above-mentioned procedure, the fabric used, such as nonwoven fabric, is also heated directly when the foambacked fabric is subjected to draw forming. On that account, the fluff of the fabric often collapses which deteriorates the appearance of the resulting two-ply foam molded articles.
Furthermore, in preparing tow-ply foam molded article by the above-mentioned procedure, there was also the problem that adhesives must be used for close lamination of a foamed sheet and a fabric, such as a nonwoven fabric.